2 New Identical PC Builds - Problems

2 newly built pcs - exactly the same specs - brand new out of the box.

Asus TA-212 Mini tower with 360w PSU(Asus)
Abit AN7
2800+ Retail
80gb SATA HD WD
Crucial 512Mb PC2700
NEC 3520 DVD/RW
Ati 9550 Video AGP

Using either Windows XP Upgrade or Windows XP OEM disks (brand new)
I get through to the starting Windows of the text based setup and the pc just sits there..........

Loaded BIOS defaults but this makes no difference. Connected the extra 4 pin 12v adaptor from psu to mobo to see if that made any difference.

Now the PC won't clear post and just sits at DMI screen and no longer recognises my CPU automatically. CMOS defaults loaded everytime I reboot the bugger. Discharged CMOS and this makes no difference at all. It is set to pins 2-3 for normal operation.

Used PSU calc. and it says 217watts, so it can't be that can it ???

Memtest ran for 9 hrs with 20 passes and no errors. Although it did freeze on exit.


Any help much appreciated - much hair tearing now - thanks in advance.

Okay, Had the whole thing out of the case and connected together.

It works absolutely fine. So it must be a problem with the Asus TA-212 :(

The mobo is secured via a mixture of brass studs and actual metal rising from the back of the case. A bit unusual ????

So I guess that the issue is with grounding and thus the problems getting into Windows setup....